High Rise, concrete apartment blocks or Apatu have become an ubiquitous feature of the South Korean city. They can be understood as a powerful symbol of the nation’s collective effort to bring about economic transformation within a compressed time frame. Ironically, the utilitarian character of this urban landscape resonates more closely with the monumental architecture of the country’s estranged neighbor than that of the typically irregular skyline of laissez-faire cities. Although this model is derived from modernist forms of mass housing and present the motif of collectivity, images of the homogenous apatu suggest that any form of neighborhood and community would struggle to flourish within its monotonous architecture.
I intend to investigate whether this preconception is correct. Seoul appears to be a city dominated by vast, monolithic infrastructure of which the Apatu are a key part. These elements facilitate the organisation and movement of people, goods and vehicles at a massive scale. It is clear that these instruments of industry shaped and distorted the urban fabric, but how have they altered the nature and notion of a Korean ‘neighborhood’ within Seoul? In addition to residential communities, what other cultures of collectivity exist within the city, what is the nature of their architecture the economies they sustain? Or in or in a political era where preserving the cult of the individual is paramount, has the need for such associations disappeared? Ultimately how have the physical and economic tools of industrial development shaped the meaning and intensity of the public realm, and the intersection between private and public worlds within the city?
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